A work of pure genius!

The key to understanding this classic book, and getting the most from it, is to realise that it's actually all about YOU. Campbell wrote it for YOU. Just think about the title for a start. YOU are the hero and your hero's journey is all about finding your inner life, your divine spark, and being engulfed and re-born out of it. This is what all the world's great hero myths were really talking about, symbolically, and Campbell brilliantly draws together the universal themes and parallels running through all the world's mystical and religious traditions, all of which were concerned (when understood metaphorically instead of literally) with this marvellous"death and resurrection" of the human psyche - from human animal to divine incarnation. It's a heroic deed which we all have the potential to achieve, and this book vibrantly and beautifully recollects many anicent stories that have drawn Mankind's imagination toward this very real transformation, through the use of the oldest and best means at our disposal - symbolic storytelling. This book is not just for the student or teacher of mythology or comparative religion, it's for everyone on the spiritual path. In fact, this book speaks directly to you wherever you are right now in life, whether on that path or not. Simply brilliant, and possibly the most important book of the 20th century. Even the full five star rating is not enough!

Brilliant!!! well worth the wait!

i was waiting for this book with high hopes as i hoped it would be as good as the first one, i was not disappointed i could even say it was better thatn the first.<br /><br />We meet the characters again in the prologue,they have a fight with the wargals they were tracking and will misses his target twice as he panics after the fight he believes he can't be a ranger anymore because he thinks he isn't good enough Halt quickly reassures him. But, will is still ashamed.<br /><br />Throughout the book you see will become more confident not to let Halt down again. Will then goes on a mission with Horrace and Gilan to the celts to discover them gone. Gilan leaves them to tell king Duncan leaving the apprentices alone to follow later. As events unravel things become more exciting and the book is full of suspense. In the end Will makes the ultimate sacifice to give Horrace time to flea to the king.<br /><br />In this sequel you see more of the ranger's loverable side and you and the character release he loves his apprentice more than he relises.<br /><br />This sequel is one of teh best sequels i have ever read and the ending is particulary annoying as he leaves it on an exciting cliffhanger!!<br /><br />i recommend this book to those who love action, wit and suspense.John Flanagan has made a successful series and i can't wait until the next one!

Proverbs & idioms

I bought this book just before moving to France 7 years ago. It’s amusing and the ilustrations are great!

An excellent reference guide

I am a law student in the US who is considering moving to the UK upon graduation. Developing some familiarity with proper UK correspondence methods and forms of address will help me bridge the cultural divide. Thank you, Debrett's!

Suberb retelling of Greek myths with beautiful illustrations

This book is the best collection of Greek myths for children I have ever read. The stories are told in a clear and simple way, yet also fully manage to convey their depth. I am a teacher of eleven year olds and on Friday mornings I read these tales for the children: they love them. McCaughrean does not shirk form occasionally shocking her readers with something challenging. The pictures are excellent and manage to convey just the right sense of magic and adventure. My own favourite among the stories is the epic tale of Perseus. It is told and illustrated with great verve and style. Anyone who wishes to share their love of mythology with children or who wishes to learn about them themselves should buy this book.

amazing a must have

very clear and easy to understand and read. full of interesting and factual information but presented in an exciting way. Absolutly fascinating! a must have for all historians or anyone hus interested in ancient civilisations.
covers a huge variety of different stories, myths, legends etc.
All in all an excellent book definatly 5 stars and definatly worth reading.

fantastic photos

This is a wonderful book packed with sumptuous photographs - most of them a whole page in size so you can really see all the details of the artifacts. I also thought the information was imparted in an easy-to-read way. This is a big beautiful book - well worth the money.

BEST TALKING BOOK EVER

At once i loved this Talkingbook It was a brilliant find and i really loved it

An Exhaustive Text for Advanced Students of Greek Mythology

Robert Graves' THE GREEK MYTHS falls between the Victorian bombast of Bulfinch and the popular style of Edith Hamilton, less stylistically intimidating than the former and more scholarly than the latter. Originally published as a two volume set in 1955 with author revisions in 1957 and 1960, this single volume text does not abridge the original text but merely confines it to a single binding.

One's reaction to THE GREEK MYTHS will depend to some extent on one's purpose in acquiring it. This is an exhaustive collection of Greek mythology that far outstrips any other modern anthology that I have encountered, including myths both better known and extremely obscure. Each myth is presented in concise, graceful prose, and where possible Graves includes genealogies of the characters and major variations of each myth; an interpretive essay also follows each myth.

While Graves' retelling of the myths themselves have been widely praised, his interpretations of the myths have been somewhat criticized--and justly so. Graves tends to see incarnations of the"White Goddess" and the"Sacrificial King" in every third story; more dangerously, he tends to tie the myths to historical events in a highly speculative way. While this does not undercut the interest of his interpretations, it does hold a number of traps for the casual reader, who may assume that Graves' essays offer standard, scholastically unbiased interpretations based on proven historical events.

For myself, I use Graves' THE GREEK MYTHS as both reference and pleasure-reading, and I enjoy it a great deal; it is an indispensable purchase for any one with a serious interest in Greek mythology or for any one who must frequently reference the same for scholarly purposes, and I strongly recommend it to them. At the same time, however, I would hesitate to recommend it to readers who have not previously been exposed to Greek mythology or who wish only a general knowledge of the major Greek myths; in such cases I would instead recommend Edith Hamilton's MYTHOLOGY: TIMELESS TALES OF GODS AND HEROES.

For the first time in 2000 years...

Geza Vermes' book, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, is a worthy capstone to a long and distinguished scroll career. Vermes entire career, from his student days to this present work, has been concentrated largely on the Dead Sea Scrolls and related topics. His doctorate in 1953 was completed with a dissertation on the historical framework of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is difficult to find any scholar with as complete a knowledge of the scrolls as has Vermes; it is impossible to find one who knows them better.

This book was released in 1997, 50 years from the time the first Arab shepherd climbed into a cave in search of a wandering animal and instead fell upon the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Following the 'revolution' of 1991 (to use Vermes words), everyone interested could have unfettered access to the Scrolls, and yet, as inaccessible as they had been previously due to physical restriction, they remained just as inaccessible due to the problem of language and translation.

'In addition to the English rendering of the Hebrew and Aramaic texts found in the eleven Qumran caves, two inscribed potsherds (ostraca) retrieved from the Qumran site and two Qumran-type documents discovered in the fortress of Masada, and brief introductory notes to each text, this volume also provides an up-to-date general introduction, outlining the history of fifty years of Scroll research and sketching the organisation, history and religious message of the Qumran Community.'

This is the latest volume of a series: when Vermes first published an edition in 1962 (then 15 years after the discovery of the first scrolls), the book had 262 pages; the current edition has 648. The introduction deals with a brief sketch of the history of research (including a bit on the controversies, such as not allowing Jewish scholars to work on these Jewish texts, the close-guarding and restrictive access of the scrolls by the scholars); further issues in the introduction address current research, including questions of dating, provenance, and perhaps, most importantly, the meaning and significance of the Qumran texts.

Vermes puts together a three-part essay on his view (as well as a little on alternative views) of who was the community at Qumran, the history of that community, and the religious ideas of the community.

This is where we get into the text of the Scrolls in earnest. Vermes begins with The Community Rule a large document that listed the requirements and a penal code. This is best known as the Manual of Discipline. Composition may have begun about 100 BCE, and several fragmentary remains exist of copies of the manual.

'There are, to my knowledge, no writings in ancient Jewish sources parallel to the Community Rule, but a similar type of literature flourished amogn Christians between the second and fourth centuries, the so-called 'Church Orders' represented by works such as the Didache, the Didascalia, the Apostolic Constitution.'

From the Rules and variants, including the now-infamous MMT text, which provoked international lawsuits for violating the 'copyright' exerted by one Scroll scholar on its contents, Vermes proceeds to examine Hymns and Poems; Calendars, Liturgies and Prayers; Apocalyptic Works (which have the greatest appeal to many imminent eschatologically-inclined sects today); Wisdom Literature; Bible translations, commentaries, and apocryphal works; and Miscellanea, including objects such as the Copper Scroll (a rare form, not on parchment, which reads like an accountant's register of treasure), and lists, including the List of False Prophets.

For anyone interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls in any serious way, this is an essential book. With various 'complete' scroll editions and collections being released, this edition, produced by one who has devoted his life to scroll studies, remains one of the best, most complete and clearly translated.

The one drawback, which will only affect those whose interest extends to the study of Roman-period Hebrew and Aramaic, is that there is no photographic imagery or recreation in Hebrew/Aramaic script to show the actual scroll text so that one might make a personal study of the accuracy of the translation. Thus, this text works best for that purpose in conjunction with another translation, or with the very-expensive scroll photographic plate sets now available.

But, for most any use from general interest to scholarship, this volume will serve the reader well.

Start here - then bloom and grow later

I have read many books on the Craft in the last five years and when you're a beginner, it can all seem a little daunting.<br /><br />This book may have its detractors (whether Wiccan hereditaries, covens or people that expect more) - but it softly eases you in to a very spiritual, honest and loving way of becoming a witch. He keeps it simple - because the religion is all about the individual having the chance to deal with the Gods and Goddesses one to one.<br /><br />Cunningham reminds you once in a while to do what YOU feel and not to slavishly follow either his words or others. This is a beautiful and simple start.<br />

I prefer EasyScript

It's an interesting method of shorthand. I prefer Easyscript because the abbreviations make sense. This method is much easier than learning shorthand symbols. With practice EasyScript will be very beneficial in taking notes and dictation.

Don't myth it...

'Mythology for Dummies' is part of the widely-read 'Dummies' series, and lives up to most of the expectations one might have of a volume in that series. It has the requisite cartoons, the various side-bar items throughout the text, and the the top-ten lists at the end - in this case, the Top Ten Places (which includes Vahalla, Elysium, Atlantis, even Brigadoon) and the Top Ten Monsters (Gorgons, Unicorns, the Sphinx, dragons, etc.).

This is a volume of mythology is not just classical Greek and Roman mythology (that which most people think of when they think of mythology). It does include these in good measure, but also goes further afield to include an overview of the main characters, stories and ideas of mythological constructs in cultures all over the world. These include some that are familiar and related to the Greco-Roman traditions - Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, Celtic and Nordic mythologies. There are also those that are quite removed from this collection of pantheons - the Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Native American traditions of mythology are also included here.

The first section gives a brief overview of what mythology is and isn't. It doesn't go too deeply into the debate over religion (after all, one person's mythology might be another person's religion). It does give some insight into the purpose of such stories for the cultures that maintained them, and how we have come to regard such tales in more modern times. Mythology is not just about gods, goddesses and monsters, after all. Often there is a very strong human component in the myths, which can serve for ethical and moral instruction as well as inspiration. These are written in the witty style typical of the series - 'How to spot a myth a mile away' is one section title. Mythology is also shown to be not something exclusively of the ancient world - American myths such as Johnny Appleseed and Br'er Rabbit are highlighted as examples.

Some of the stories included here fall more under the category of 'legend' than 'mythology' in popular definition - the stories of King Arthur, for example, do fall under the category of mythology, although it is rarely assigned such categorisation for a host of reasons. However, the Arthurian legends are contained here (one section is entitled 'Sex, Lies, and Good Jousting'). The text also ventures into the delicate area of the parallels between ancient Mesopotamian legends and early Biblical stories - tales such as the Tower of Babel and the Great Flood bear striking similarity to many extra-canonical tales in the ancient region.

The prose is good and accessible, like most of the Dummies books. There are some graphics and line-art drawings, and the chapters are short enough for the typical reader to finish easily in one sitting. This is a fun way to learn the old stories, and relate them to modern times. I would recommend this book for adults with a general interest, and also for undergraduate students and even high school students who want a survey of the material.

Very interesting backgrounder of biblical time myths

Gary Greenberg's book starts out with a summary of the document theory of the bible, and tells short versions of the creation myths of the Egyptians and the Sumerians in the time the OT was written. <br />Most of the book consists of short chapters on 101"Myths" (citations from the Bible) with a short description of"The Reality" behind it, followed by one or two pages of explanations. <br /><br />Gary Greenberg explains how the ancient Hebrews incorporated the Egyptian and Sumerian stories into a story that fitted their monotheistic worldview, and how you can identify traces of the original versions with deities. He also reconstructed historic situations such as the split of Israel after king Solomon, and the choices writers made because of that, and makes educated guesses as to which kingdom or tribe the writers belonged.<br /><br />I am not a scholar in this field, so I have to assume the backgrounds Gary Greenberg gives are correct. As a skeptic I have the problem that I don't know how to check everything. Some of the explanations contained reasons that seemed to be disputable: name similarities, based on fragments of text. I have some sort of an antenna for disputable claims, probably fueled by reading books such as Erich von Däniken (Were the Gods astronauts?), Velikovski (Worlds in collision) and others.<br />Therefore I am glad to say that in the conclusion all 101 threads are woven together again, making it a coherent hypothesis. <br />I'm afraid that to check it more I would have to follow the Further Reading advises with which the book ends.

Incense, Oils & Brews--Scott Cunningham

Well thumbed, dirty around the edges & with so many place markings what else can I say!!
Being also an Aromatherapist & with a good grasp of the do's & dont's of the"Oil/Herb World" I found this a very welcome volume to my very extensive"libary".
What ever you believe in & whatever you decide to call it. It will work.
Good to read with many varied"creams/lotions & potions" they are what you make of them, wether you 'empower'or not, the recipes/concoctions - for want of better words- should be done with love- as should anything that you make for yourself or for others,
So enjoy & take it as it is, an interesting volume well worth the space that it takes in your library.

An Absolute Must

Mr. Bunson has compiled an absolute must read for any reader or author of vampire literature. Complete, concise, and educational beyond belief.

If it relates to the vampire, you will find it in the pages of this book, everything from the familiar to the obscure. Never knew butterflies were associated with death and vampires until Mr. Bunson's book came along!

An altogether excellent job of research!